Chapter 455: Erosion

Our slime group gathered at Glimmerock after I handled the transportation, eager to hear what Sylbera had to say, even though almost none of us really used warrior skills. There was also the case of informing them of the achievement I had just earned and finding out whether my personas could also get a secondary class.

"Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but basically he used multiple skills together," Sylbera said after sighing.

Sylvain snorted. "You're right, that does sound stupid. Don't we all do that already?"

Sylbera shook her head. "Not like this, and I tried to do as Urist described, and it was not as easy as it looked. Perhaps the simplest term to describe it for us, since we all have spellcasting experience, is holding multiple spells ready to cast and then syncing them up together. Active combat skills don't usually let you hold them, so the only other way is to activate them all at the exact same time."

"Yikes, that does sound hard…" Sylthaeryn agreed. "That's like asking me to use [Multishot] and [Powershot] at the same time, which… I honestly don't know if I could pull off."

"With what Urist said, it should be possible," Sylbera answered. "And I know what some of you are probably thinking. I already tried to do it with the help of a [Sub-Core], and while it appeared to lower the difficulty, I still wasn't able to make the skills resonate like he did."

"Do you think he was lying?" I asked, having never heard of skills resonating before.

"No, and why would he? I'm sure you could verify his information somehow, and then he would just be insulting a future diamond-rank adventurer. Plus he seemed genuinely grateful that we got him out of there. I think it just needs a lot of practice, which I'll add to my list of tasks, Master."

"I'll also take a crack at it," Sylthaeryn said, pulling out a bow from [Core Storage]. "I might as well put these archery skills to use. I can also ask Keldenar about it."

"He probably hasn't done it himself since he is a caster, but there is a chance he has tried to build it into his advanced golems capable of using skills and class abilities," Sylvester replied. "Speaking of which, I assume I should tell him of our success? Do you have any idea when you will be paying a visit to arrange whatever it is for the diamond-rank promotion?"

"Feel free to tell him," I answered. "As for when I'll visit… Maybe after I spend a day or two on the island? I've got some new things I need to try out, since I just got a big upgrade from my Riftmancer milestone. Also, I need to go pick up my secondary class."

"You got it?" Sylvester asked with surprise.

The rest of the personas looked surprised too, which clearly meant they hadn't received the same achievement. It made sense: as much as Vee and I treated them as real people, they were creations of my skill, so they probably couldn't earn the achievement.

"I did. I got an achievement, which I assume is the thing Leon talked about. I expected a bit more fanfare when it happened, but it was just a system ping. Unfortunately, I'm guessing that means you guys weren't able to get it, but hopefully that will change when I uncap [Split Personality]."

The group looked a bit disheartened by my explanation, but after I confirmed I planned to uncap the skill, they seemed to recover somewhat. We had to hope nobody had uncapped the skill before me so I could make my request, and even if I was first, there was no guarantee my suggestion would be accepted. So far none of my fancies had been rejected, but it was admittedly a small sample size.

After that, we ran out of anything urgent to discuss and said our farewells, with me depositing their cores so they could return to their various posts through the cores left behind. I was genuinely a little jealous that I didn't have a way to use this convenient [Core Storage] myself, and I wondered if I could use [Dimension Magic] to recreate it.

Maybe when I deconstruct [Personal Rift]? Who knows…

When everyone was home safe and sound, I wanted to do a few things before I teleported back myself. The first thing I did was find a monster on Glimmerock, which happened to be a griffin in this case, and then I activated [Spatial Erosion]. Even without my [Coordicore], its personal coordinates turned into my personal plaything, and I began teleporting it around the floating island against its will.

The monster tried several times to fly away, perhaps its instincts sensing my true power, but each time I teleported it right back to me. I did the same when it tried to attack me; moments before its claws reached me, it warped back to the same spot I kept returning it to.

Fascinating…. I know this monster doesn't have much magic resistance, but I didn't expect this much control with so little effort.

I cast [Displaced] on the griffin, and while the effect took hold, I didn't see much difference. If the monster had resisted [Spatial Erosion], then this combination might have been appropriate, but right now it did nothing. The same happened when I had my [Coordicore] start working; I already had its coordinates at my fingertips, and there wasn't really a level above that.

However, struck by inspiration, I had a rather dastardly idea I wanted to try. Offensive teleportation was something that the world seemed to genuinely prohibit, but with the combined might of [Spatial Erosion], [Displaced], and my [Coordicore]? Maybe I could overcome that.

I had the coordinates in the blink of an eye, directly beneath us, deep within the floating island, and then tried to teleport the griffin there. When I sensed the resistance, I thought I'd failed like many times before, but to my surprise, my [Coordicore] and I pushed through that restriction, and the griffin vanished.

What happened next was almost indescribable. The monster was definitely teleported underground; I sensed that, but then its body came hurtling upwards until nothing but a smear emerged from the ground. I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting, but it definitely wasn't that, and I was even rewarded for it.

<Proficiency gained. [Spatial Erosion LV 1] improved to [Spatial Erosion LV 2].>

I mean… It did mention eroding at the fabric of reality… So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

I'd never seen a monster pop before, and even for me, this might have been a bit too much. But the horror I felt might have been because this was something Vee and I risked anytime we teleported ourselves, which might be another reason why anyone with dimensional affinity didn't last long.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I tried it a few more times and figured out how the lethality was calculated. When a creature or object merged into something solid, reality tried to correct it by shunting it to the closest available space, and the farther it had to travel, the worse the damage. It might sound underwhelming, but even a relatively small amount of shunting seemed to be more than these weak monsters could handle.

What was particularly interesting was that I'd always thought the teleported monster was the victim, since I'd never seen any damage to the ground or even smaller things like trees, until I tried teleporting another griffin into a tree. The griffin took damage from being shunted out of the tree, but the tree itself basically exploded while the monster survived.

At first I had no idea what had happened, but then I figured it probably had something to do with dimensional weight. The floating island had more dimensional weight than anything else here, so it always won the exchanges; while the tree had been mostly the same against smaller monsters, the griffin was too much for it.

I pulled out a [Sub-Core] and had it take on a vaguely me shape, before I teleported it into another tree. The tree exploded, and the fake me was almost entirely unharmed, further proving my theory that it was related to dimensional weight. Even then, I suspected there was more to it, as I reckoned the entity already occupying the space was treated more favorably than the creature being shunted.

Of course, I tried to teleport the [Sub-Core] into a monster, but I met a seemingly insurmountable barrier. Even with [Dimensional Erosion], [Displaced], and my [Coordicore] working together, we couldn't make it happen. It seemed reality refused to let me do this, although I wondered if a few more levels in [Dimensional Erosion] would change that.

Well, I just got a new weapon, although I don't know if I should be happy about it. I should also warn Vee, although she already seemed to be more knowledgeable about this than I am. She also had [Phase Out] to protect herself from turning into a smear…

I had spent more time on that than I thought I would, but it was an interesting experience. I'd probably try to shunt a few more monsters and objects before using [Skill Deconstruct] on [Dimensional Erosion] to get one more level. But that was for later; instead, I turned to the medusa profile I'd gone above and beyond to secure.

Wow, Urist was right; this is almost a double legendary monster…

I had fought a few snake monsters in the past, but none of them were really worth mentioning; the medusa was at the top of the evolution chain, and now it connected to those profiles and practically let me see the entire tree. It seemed like almost any snake monster could somehow evolve into a lamia, which was considered an extremely special evolution and, from what I understood, usually the end of the evolutionary road.

But the medusa broke through that barrier and evolved again as the supreme form. Weirdly, both a lamia and medusa were classified as tier six, despite the medusa clearly being above the lamia. I wondered if this was the "special circumstance" Gramps had mentioned, and perhaps Slime Queen wasn't the limit for me, nor was Arachne the limit for Vee.

As for the traits, there were many, and I'd effectively inherited the entire snake legacy from eating the medusa. There were all sorts of scale upgrades, techniques to devour or constrict foes, fangs with all sorts of venoms, and of course, the fabled [Petrifying Gaze]. As Urist mentioned, it required eye contact, but that one mistake would cost almost anyone their life.

When I borrowed the trait, it required me to form an organ to use it, just like with [Infernal Sac], and it was obviously an eye. Of course, unlike medusa, I was a slime, so I could make the eye appear anywhere I wanted and shift the deadly sensory organ around my body. I didn't really want an eye on my forehead, and while I could have replaced one of my elf eyes, I ended up keeping it in the palm of my hand before going out for a bit of hunting.

The monsters of Glimmerock were no match for the legendary eye, and soon I'd added a collection of monstrous statues to the environment. Of course I didn't stop there, and I tried seeing what would happen if I cured a petrified monster. The eye could actually reverse the effect, but I wanted to try my slime solution with the combined power of [Heal Slime] and [Poison Slime], and after covering a petrified harpy in the magical slime solution, I saw a brand-new system notification.

<A previously defeated foe has been revived. Experience reclaimed.>

Huh… Is this why the system always says defeated, not killed? So you can actually lose experience.

I briefly wondered if I could lose a level as a result, but then I recalled what happened to me when I evolved early. Rather than losing a level, the system would probably put you in debt until you earned enough experience again.

If I used petrification to win, I probably wouldn't need to worry about this, and the easiest solution would be to smash the statue afterward to prevent recovery. Still, this offered me a potentially non-lethal way to defeat and capture someone. So long as no accident happened to their statue, of course.

What was interesting, though, was that the medusa had more than one gaze; [Petrifying Gaze] was just so much better than everything else. Why would you even bother? Most of the gazes were to inflict various conditions, such as hypnotic, rage, and even fear. But there were actually a few attack ones too, although the damage left a lot to be desired.

Still, I bet Vee would be impressed by an eye that can basically shoot lasers, even if they are kind of crap.

Lastly, there was the medusa body itself, and I shapeshifted into it myself to try wearing it. Having a massive tail was honestly pretty fun, and I considered mixing parts of this with the magma-tempered worm I was fond of. Multiple arms as a base was also interesting, and if not for [Slime Mastery], I might have coveted this as a non-pseudopod solution for adding limbs.

The humanoid portion was also quite pretty, although I had the ability to change it to whatever I wanted and even replaced it with my usual elf-self. I could also freely change the size, and ended up shrinking it down to a more appropriate size, and wondered if I should go home like this to tease Vee.

What was kind of interesting about the medusa was that, in theory, she shouldn't have been so big, except the labyrinth master had based it on a naga, which from what I had pieced together, was one of the largest snake monsters available. It was kind of like how Vee's form was based on the spider she had been before picking Arachne.

But my wandering thoughts and playing around came to a screeching halt when I got a system ping, and boy, this one was a doozy.

<Proficiency gained. [Chimeric Mimicry LV 9] improved to [Chimeric Mimicry LV MAX].>